


there'll be a sandwich for you at home

by ellipsesificate



Series: comm-ficathon fills [2]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Gen, comm-ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellipsesificate/pseuds/ellipsesificate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The vegetarian section. Is it really still necessary?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	there'll be a sandwich for you at home

“Has anyone ever actually ordered from the vegetarian menu in the last few years?” Jeff asks her one afternoon, stooped over the counter with a pensive look on his face and hands clasped together as Shirley digs through her first aid kit.

She doesn’t answer him for a minute, because Kevin is still sniffling in the corner next to the oven, hand clutched to his chest. “Don’t let them amputate me,” he begs when Shirley approaches, brandishing hydrogen peroxide and bandages. “Just promise me that.”

“You’re not allowed to watch hospital dramas anymore,” she tells him sweetly when he holds out his palm. There’s barely a scratch but she applies the peroxide anyways, humming when Kevin whines at the sting.

“You really need to learn how to use a knife properly, because this is getting ridiculous,” Jeff tells him, and Kevin shoots him a glare as Shirley smooths the bandage over the wound. “I’ve been waiting two whole minutes for my sandwich. Sloppy much?”

“Don’t come when we’re supposed to be closing then,” Kevin snaps back, cradling his newly dressed hand and glaring until Shirley puts her hand on his shoulder and gently pushes him towards the backroom.

“You go clean up, I’ll make him his sandwich.” Kevin relents, but sticks his tongue out at Jeff anyways before marching out, much to Jeff’s amusement.

“I still can’t believe you still trust Chang with anything in here.”

Shirley shrugs as she pulls out the whole-wheat bread. “I don’t think he’s capable of hurting anyone but himself at this point. Now what were you asking earlier?”

Jeff’s eyes flick back up to the menu briefly. His fingers drum against the countertop. “The vegetarian section. Is it really still necessary?”

“Of course it is, Jeffrey,” she answers, putting generous slices of turkey on the sandwich. “It doesn’t hurt to be mindful of the eating habits of others. I don’t talk about how you like low-fat mayonnaise, do I?”

“It tastes exactly the same if you get the right stuff.” Jeff straightens up as Shirley wraps the sandwich up – she can see his newest phone in his jacket pocket, and a small part of her expects him to pull it out. He doesn’t, though, for the same reason that she has a vegetarian menu in the first place. He pulls out his wallet instead. “Sorry for making you stay late, by the way – I have a custody case to review tonight if I want to make that get-together tomorrow.”

Shirley grins as she accepts the money (she used to insist on the whole study group receiving a discount, but that stopped when she learned that Jeff had convinced Kevin that he had a tab which would eventually be paid off). “Oh, it’ll be so nice to see everyone again.”

“Yeah,” Jeff says, unable to stop his own small smile. “It will.”

 

Shirley was going through her scrapbook when Troy and Abed called the next day, singing, “Troy and Abed back in TOOOO-oooown!”

“We’re staying at my dad’s for the week. It turns out that he couldn’t figure out how to open the videos we sent him, so he has a lot of catching up to do,” Abed tells her once Troy stops choking on his excited tears, and she stops on the page dedicated to the videos that the pair had sent her, the best parts screenshot and printed with Jordan’s help.

Annie calls shortly afterwards, she’s at a Starbucks just a couple of hours away and she might be a bit late tonight, but she has more pictures and stories from her university forensic courses for Shirley to add into her scrapbook. “It’s all even better in real life than it is on Law and Order,” Annie gushes, and Shirley believes her.

There are only two pages in the scrapbook that still have spare space. Pierce’s has the few tasteful pictures of Gilbert and himself from their bonding trip around the world, the others shredded before Ben could wander upon them by accident. There has been three dropped calls and a blurry picture of Gilbert’s ear, so she supposes that they’re back too.

The other remains sparse because sometimes email access isn’t always likely and postage can get expensive, but nonetheless she has a blurb of a letter proclaiming in a messy scrawl how _this_ professor had commended her progress since she began the program and _that_ professor had called her a diamond in the rough, and a snapshot of half a brick wall and the night sky, and the pale pointed tip of a nose. Shirley is fond of it anyways.

 

“It was going to be one of those new Snap-Yaps,” Pierce explains, crossing his arms defensively. “Like what Annie sends me all the time.”

“I already stopped caring,” she chirps back, slapping Craig’s creeping hand away from the platter of brownies. “Not yet, not until everyone’s here.”

The dean steps back, palms held out in apology and offense. “Well alright, but don’t you think that everyone is basically here already? And we wouldn’t want to these to go stale…” He trails off when Shirley narrows her eyes, the very idea of her freshly baked brownies going stale blasphemous. “You know, I just remembered that I have. Paperwork. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

He beats a hasty retreat, and to Shirley’s disappointment Jeff is also striding towards the door, eyes cast down at his phone, but before she can stop him Kevin stumbles into her path, a bundle of bubble-wrap cradled in his arms. “Do you remember how you put me in charge of the napkins?”

“I knew they were too flammable for you to handle.”

“I’m offended,” he says solemnly, hugging the bubble-wrap tight. “It was Troy and Abed – they stole it from me because apparently they needed more ‘shenanigans’. Well,” he amended at Shirley’s doubtful glance, “it was more of a fair compensation for this poppy-pop paper, which turned out to be mostly pre-popped, so it was _basically_ thievery.”

Shirley sighs. “I’ll just have to go get more then.”

She returns from the supply closet to a great cheer, and for a moment Shirley doesn’t understand why, she hasn’t even brought out the cake, but everyone is turned towards the entrance where she can see Jeff smirking, and Annie grinning, and—

“Where do you keep finding these nice boots?” Craig asks Britta, peering over Troy and Abed’s shoulders as they simultaneously lean in for hugs. There are napkins taped to their shirts, and Britta is questioning them on how much paper they plan on squandering, and Shirley laughs.

Britta catches her eyes and if that girl grins any wider her face is going to break, so when Troy and Abed (mostly Troy, Abed is content with being able to pat her on the back) release her and Britta satisfies Pierce with a firm handshake, Shirley opens her arms wide and Britta sails into them.

There’s an envelope crumpled against Shirley’s back, and when Britta pulls back she shoves it into Shirley’s hand with a sheepish smile. “For your scrapbook,” she explains as Shirley opens it. “I’ve been meaning to get these to you, but you know how it gets, but I figured they’d make a great addition…”

Shirley pulls out a few of the pictures – a coffee cup bouncing off someone’s leg, one is blurry bird’s eye view of an apartment building lined by a busy sidewalk, and another of the top half of Britta’s face, one eyebrow raised, trying to look too cool for the church behind her.

“They’ll do,” Shirley says, hooking her arm with Britta’s. “Now you come with me, I have a new tofu sandwich recipe I need to test on someone.”

Britta gladly follows her, as everyone else finally indulges themselves on the brownies. “Nobody else makes them like you do, y’know?”

“I know.”


End file.
